10 Ways to Save Money While Road Tripping

Road tripping is such an awesome experience, but the cost can quickly add up if you're not careful. We started off our road trip adventures six years ago as broke university students looking to spend as little money as possible. We were able to penny pinch our way across the country, which allowed us to do more activities along the way. We now keep some of those money saving tips with us on our current road trip adventures.

Here are our 10 tips to save cash while money tripping

1. Bring your own food

As much as going on a foodie tour is an amazing adventure all in its own, the cost of buying food daily really adds up. We generally start off our road trips with a box of cheerios, some pb&j sandwiches and enough spaghetti to last us a few days. We use gas station microwaves to heat up our food, and generally buy groceries before heading out on our road trip.

Road trip tip: If you’re going to go on a foodie tour, but want to cut down on cost, consider only eating out for one meal a day.

2. Travel with a cooler

A great way to save money while road tripping is to travel with a cooler. This also helps us stay on track when it comes to eating healthy and traveling. Sometimes it’s easy enough to stop at McDonalds and grab something quick to eat. When you’re traveling in remote areas, or have food on hand, this helps eliminate that need to stop and spend money on unhealthy food.

Buying a flat of water for $0.89/bottle is a much better price than buying water for $3-4 in some places while travelling.

3. Get free ice from McDonalds

Most McDonalds locations will allow you to fill up your cooler with ice from their pop machines. We often travel with a smaller cooler, fill that full of ice, and then dump it into our larger cooler.

Road trip tip: Our cooler goes in our trunk so we have room on the backseat, then we use a little cooler to keep our drinks and small snacks in. We keep this one in the car for easy access.

4. Gas Buddy

There are many apps out there that will track your gas usage, and give you the cheapest price for gas at local gas stations near you, or on route to your next destination. We like to use Gas Buddy when road tripping. Finding cheaper gas prices while road tripping may only save you $5-10 here and there, but when you’re traveling for a few weeks, that $5-10 can add up to a good amount of savings.

5. Skip the hotel

The cost of hotels can really add up. Many road trippers chose to camp at various camp sites along their road trip route to help save money while road tripping. In our younger days, we opted to sleep in the car. We still do on many of our road trips, but we will from time to time splurge and rent a hotel for a night or two.

Road trip tip: if you’ve skipped the hotel, but are in need of a place to shower, a local wave pool or gym is a great option. We’ve never had an issue with this. We generally explain to them that we’re on a road trip and are just interested in using their showers, and they usually just charge us the drop in fee.

6. Drive at night

I love driving at night time. This helps eliminate the hassle of driving during rush hour traffic, and idling your car while spending sometimes hours sitting in traffic. It’s not only a gas saver, but also a time saver.

7. Explore National Parks

Although many national parks have entrance fees of around $20-35, the parks can often keep your family entertained for days, and many of the national parks allow you to camp there for free.

8. Go hiking

We often drive to places like Zion National Park for some amazing hiking trails. This is a great way to entertain yourself for a day while also getting a bird’s eye view of the park from high on the mountain peaks. Angles Landing happens to be one of my favorite hiking trails We also road trip to places like Colorado, Newfoundland, and Whistler to explore some of the free hiking trails.

9. Sleep at Wal-mart

If you’re looking for a somewhat safe place to pull over for a good night sleep, Wal-mart is well known for encouraging RVers and travelers to sleep in their parking lots overnight. This is actually a fairly smart move by Wal-mart. Why not run into the store quickly while you’re there and stock up on supplies?

Road trip tip: If you’re not interested in sleeping in a Wal-mart parking lot overnight, rest stops along the highway are also a great place. They always seem to have the cleanest bathrooms we’ve come across.

10. Reach out to family and friends along the way

We’re lucky to have family across the country that are more than happy to open their doors to us for a night or two. It’s a great way to spend quality family time with your distant loved ones that you may not get to see often.

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Michelle Bucher is an avid road tripper, travel writer and social media marketer from Vancouver, British Columbia. Michelle has spent the past six years on various road trip adventures around North America. She's road tripped through 48 states, 10 provinces and several other countries. Michelle runs a fun travel blog, roadtripblogger.com, showcasing stories from her random road trip adventures.